Fish And Fowl
by tielan
Summary: It is impossible to return to what you used to be.


**NOTES: **sparklingjadex said, "I'd like to see Teyla on one of her visits to the mainland." It took a while, but...done!

**-- Fish And Fowl--**

Teyla paused at the edge of the camp, turning back to watch as the older children lit the lanterns hanging outside each Athosian tent with solemn care.

She remembered her own excitement the first day her father had allowed her to light the lantern outside their own tent, using the firestarter he gave into her hand. The others lighting the lamps had waved and called out to her as she emerged from the tent, the older boys nudging each other with interest. Too conscious of her adolescent dignity, Teyla had ignited the firestarter and lit the dry tinder in the lantern, then closed the storm shutter over the dancing flame to protect it from the wind and cold.

As she had done back then, so did the Athosian children now, calling out to each other with laughter and jokes before they returned inside to the family gatherings within. In a little while, families would congregate in the larger tents, gathering together to share their evening meals.

Evening was descending upon the mainland, crawling gently over the hills and the valleys, deepening the shadows with purplish tinges, reflecting the last of the sun's light from the mountains.

"So ends the day," said Halling from beside her, his face angled towards the sky, even as hers was. "I am glad you made time to come."

"I am glad there was time to come." Teyla watched the sky and knowing the light was receding, shade by indistinguishable shade, knowing that night was similarly falling over Atlantis as it floated on the ocean's surface far to the north of the mainland. "I would be here more often--"

"But you do not belong here anymore."

His words shocked her, stung her, took the breath from her body with painful force. "Halling--"

In the creeping twilight, she could still see his expression, the hand he held up. "Hear me out, Teyla. Please."

Anger flared, but she held her tongue. Halling was not one for casual cruelty or uncertain silence. If he had felt her absence from their people was inappropriate, he would have spoken of this before. In over two years he had mentioned nothing of this - none of her people had. In that silence, Teyla had supposed them accepting of her decision to live in Atlantis and fight the Wraith in ways more active than the Athosians ever had before.

Perhaps not.

"I am listening." She did not mean for the words to sound so ominous.

Yet it matched her mood as Halling faced her, the lines of his long face seeming longer in the evening. "You are still our leader, Teyla, and will be until you choose or bear a successor. We are your people and will always be - no matter what."

"But?"

He lifted a hand to the sky. "Night falls slowly here as it fell swiftly on Athos. Why?"

It seemed a diversion, but that was not Halling's way. The question had meaning, even if Halling was not willing to explain it yet. "It is to do with the size of the planet," Teyla said, answering his question after a moment's thought. "Athos was small - so when day became night, it did so faster. This planet is much larger, and the movement from light to dark is slower."

"Once, you would not have known that," Halling said, his voice gentle.

Teyla paused. Once, she had not known the Lanteans. "That I know it now does not change who I am."

"You are still Teyla Emmagen of Athos," Halling agreed. "And yet you come back to us, and you have changed. Not for the worse - in most respects you are as you always were."

"And in others I am different?"

Her old friend had a weary smile. "Am I the same man who was taken by the Wraith from Athos?"

They both knew that answer.

"Halling, the Lanteans fight the Wraith. I fight with them to give hope for our people!"

"And not one Athosian grudges you that task," he told her, his voice both quiet and firm in the shadows. "When we give thanks to the Ancestors, the children speak your name, that the Ancestors might know one of us lives in their city and takes up what they left undone."

Teyla knew. She had been embarrassed the first time she heard it, and even more so when she realised her inclusion in the evening thanksgiving song was not a one-off thing because she was present. "Halling--"

"You are one of us, Teyla," he said, his hands framing her shoulders, turning her to face him. "Our people are the pulse of your living, but your heart does not belong wholly to us anymore." His smile was faint and rueful, little more than a twitch of darkness in the lantern-lit night. "If it ever did."

The regret in his voice prompted a more personal question. "Was that why you would not sire my child?"

That had been long ago. She had asked, he had refused her and accepted Jinto's mother. The sting of the rejection was gone - it had been brief in any case - but the question remained.

Halling's smile deepened as he quoted a saying, "'We do not hold burning branches by the end in flame.'" His eyes studied her face. "Charin was right. You were meant for more than me, or Athos, or our people. That is why you live in the city of the Ancestors and take up their fight."

"Halling, I do this for our people."

"And because you have always longed to do more against the Wraith than any of the others thought was possible," he said. "That, in itself, is what set you apart from us, even as children."

She regarded her friend's face, older, laced with lines where once it had been sculpted and taut. Teyla remembered the youth he'd been even as she looked upon the man he'd become. "And you do not think I belong here."

"I think it must be difficult, standing between our people and the Lanteans," Halling said gently. "You do it well."

He did not answer her question.

And as she turned to look at the dancing lights in the Athosian lamps, Teyla was afraid she understood only too well what he was saying. As the Lanteans would say, she was neither fish nor fowl, no longer belonging wholly to Athos, but neither of Earth and the expedition.

_It's harder for you. _Ronon had said during the journey back to Atlantis from Sateda. He'd been sitting on the gurney, waiting for Dr. Beckett to finish with Rodney, and she'd gently probed his feelings on seeing his ruined world again, mindful of the gasping pain she'd felt upon seeing the burned husk of Athos for the first time.

Somehow, he'd turned the question around, with more skill than she expected of him. _What do you mean?_

He'd watched her a minute with the eyes that were far older than his physical age. _I've got nowhere else to go._

Atlantis was home to Ronon, as it was home to many others who had lived in the city so long.

Teyla looked up at Halling, who was still watching her with too much understanding in his eyes. He was right in ways she did not like to contemplate. She did not belong here anymore.

"Teyla?" John's voice snaked out of the darkness, and she and Halling turned to face him as he emerged from the shadows. "You ready to go yet? Hey, Halling."

"Colonel Sheppard. You are well?"

"Yeah, pretty good." John flashed a quick smile at the Athosian man. "Jinto's okay?"

"Growing fast, in the way of all boys."

"Cool. Look, apologise for having to run, but we've got something that isn't a crisis back in Atlantis."

"Something that is not a crisis?"

"It is not a crisis _yet_," Teyla said, without explaining the term to Halling. The phrase meant that if it was not a crisis at this precise moment, it was rapidly becoming one.

Given that it was 'not yet a crisis', Teyla was surprised that John was here at all.

John nodded. "What Teyla said. Are you ready to go home?"

"Yes," she said, and turned back to Halling. Then she realised that John had called Atlantis 'home' and she had not corrected him.

Again, she met only understanding in her old friend's eyes. "You would be here more often," Halling murmured as he bent his head to hers, echoing her earlier words. "Be well, Teyla. We look forward to seeing you soon."

With a quick farewell to John, Halling strode away down the avenue of lights, never looking back.

Teyla watched him go, his words ringing in her ears. _You do not belong here anymore._

"Teyla?" John touched her arm. "You okay?"

This was not for sharing, even with him.

She took a deep breath and willed away the hurt and pain. "It is nothing," she said, feeling something within her shake unbearably loose as the lamplight fell across the retreating man. "We can go...home."

They left the Athosian camp without fuss or fanfare.

- **fin** -


End file.
